When you open your Peacock mobile app this summer, you might see a portal leading to the AI likeness of TV host Andy Cohen on your homepage. In an announcement on Friday, NBCUniversal said Cohen’s avatar will serve as a guide through Peacock’s “infinitely swipeable” feed of clips from Bravo shows, like Love Island, The Real Housewives series, and Below Deck.
The feed, called “Your Bravoverse,” will surface clips from the shows that you choose when you first open up the new experience. NBCUniversal will use AI to scan and pick out scenes from your favorite shows, while an AI-generated Cohen offers input about what’s happening on screen.
Peacock’s short-form video expansion is part of a broader trend that has streaming services trying to keep viewers locked into their apps. This week, Disney Plus followed ESPN by adding a new stream of clips, called “verts,” while Netflix has also experimented with a short-form feed.
John Jelley, NBCUniversal’s senior vice president of product, told reporters that with the use of AI, the company can create 600 billion different variations of the Bravoverse feed. “We’ve used AI and an AI agent that we’ve trained on what Bravo fans care about,” Jelley said. “There might be tens of thousands of clips and moments and metadata, but we know that fans love an explosive walk-out.”
A short-form video feed isn’t Peacock’s only play to capture user attention; it’s also adding a new Law & Order: Clue Hunter mobile game this spring. The game comes from Wolf Games, the AI-enabled studio cofounded by Elliot Wolf, the son of Law & Order creator Dick Wolf. It asks users “to find hidden objects to help identify suspects and solve a mystery,” according to the press release. Peacock is also adding Public Eye to its app this summer, another title from Wolf Games that uses AI to generate a new mystery to solve each day.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
Update, March 13th: Clarified the presence of the Bravoverse on Peacock’s homepage.